NASA has released its latest image of Saturn taken by their Cassini spacecraft and it is a view many may not have expected.
Released in a press release, the image is taken from directly above Saturn's north pole and shows a unique six-sided (hexagon) jet stream. The jet stream also has a massive rotating storm at its center, a weather event unlike any other in the solar system.
The image is a GIF, a movie of only a few seconds that repeats itself constantly, to show the hexogen shape and rotation of the storm. It is the first movie image of its kind and depicts a very rare weather event.
CLICK HERE to see the Cassini image of Saturn's hexagon jet stream.
"The hexagon is just a current of air, and weather features out there that share similarities to this are notoriously turbulent and unstable," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "A hurricane on Earth typically lasts a week, but this has been here for decades -- and who knows -- maybe centuries."
The jet stream spans about 20,000 miles across and has winds of about 200 miles per hour. It is also very stable, which scientists believe is due to the lack of landforms or ice formations on Saturn. Those would cause a weather pattern like this on Earth to dissipate.
"Inside the hexagon, there are fewer large haze particles and a concentration of small haze particles, while outside the hexagon, the opposite is true," said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Virginia. "The hexagonal jet stream is acting like a barrier, which results in something like Earth's Antarctic ozone hole."
Cassini launched in 1997 and has been beaming stunning photos of Saturn to Earth ever since its arrival in 2004. The mission is set to end in Sept. 2017, Saturn's summer solstice.
